Fusion-io accelerates databases, cloud computing and applications with very fast memory storage for servers. Customers like Facebook and Apple run MySQL on Fusion-io storage that is several hundred times faster than traditional hard drives. Seeking knowledgeable MySQL developer skills to implement performance optimization for their hardware, Fusion-io turned to MariaDB's unique developer team with InnoDB storage engine expertise.

Fusion-io - Accelerated Data Storage

Fusion-io was founded in 2006 to unleash the speed of NAND-flash memory. Several hundred times faster than traditional hard drives, flash-memory has traditionally been limited by legacy storage infrastructure. In 2012 Fusion-io has reached over $359.3M in revenues with customers including Facebook, Apple and HP through OEM. Based in Utah, Fusion-io employs over 940 people including former Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Challenge: Performance Improvements Denied By Closed Source

In a highly competitive storage market, Fusion-io differentiates itself by optimizing applications to reap the full benefits of NAND-flash memory. Supported applications included MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle and SAP.

The majority of Fusion-io’s revenue comes from it’s top ten customers - many of them major MySQL users interested in the best possible performance running MySQL on Fusion-io. MySQL has been partly optimized for Fusion-io: the speed of data retrieval and life expectancy can be improved by turning off double writes - a default storage procedure with storage engine InnoDB.

Further optimization improvements for Oracle governed MySQL have been slow to be implemented. Fusion-io sought a knowledgeable partner to implement further improvements for it’s MySQL customers.

Solution: Feature Development By Unique MariaDB Development Team

Fusion-io were interested in MariaDB not only due to its increased adoption by MySQL users and Linux distributions but also due to the unique development team behind the open source database.

The MariaDB team includes some of the world’s knowledgeable MySQL developers. The recent addition of competence in InnoDB storage engine development means MariaDB can offer unique database development possibilities for customers such as Fusion-io. This know-how is not available anywhere else.

"The MariaDB engineering team is exceptionally skilled at identifying and implementing breakthroughs in software design that delivers unique benefits for users and no surprise about MariaDB surge in take up recently”, said Jeff Treuhalt, Fusion-io Executive Vice President of Products. “Innovations like flash-aware Atomic writes API are designed to help leading databases such as MariaDB deliver even more speed and reliability by leveraging flash as memory to turn data into information at real-time speeds to accelerate business decisions."

Fusion-io and MariDB’s next project is already in the works with plans for further optimizing data layers and increased performance.